Sunday, January 20, 2013

Books Onscreen: Les Miserables

My husband loved this one; and I had no major quibbles with it either (yes, not even with casting). Except that Victor Hugo's original novel is so full of tragedy and melodrama, your heart twists this way and that. And the musical score didn't help at all. Everything is orchestrated to make you break down in sobs (quiet, dignified sobbing, though.) Several times the daughter stage-whsipered to me during the screening, "My heart is already breaking." Once again, a good translation, twice over--from book to stage, from stage to Hollywood screen.

Adam Gopnik weighs in on the book's revival here, and it's worth a read (as all pieces of Gopnik, which I've read, are) and more.

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